Tonbridge Angels U18 (1) 5 Larkin 16 Fabimafobee 47,63,69 Hunidzarira 71
Welling United U18 (1) 3 Cragg 9,74,77
Attendance: 35
Admission: Pass
Mileage: 38/4,544
Tonbridge Angels Under-18s stretched their lead at the top of the Isthmian Youth League to five points on Monday evening with a 5-3 win over a Welling United side that will be similarly challenging for the title come April. Sutton Common Rovers reduced the lead the following evening with a 2-1 win at Maidstone United and remain the favourites with their couple of games in hand.
To round up a couple of games that went unreported, on 6th January, the Angels and Maidstone fought out an uninspiring 1-1 draw at the Halcyon Wealth Longmead Stadium. A dour game that was out of character for these two sides saw Maidstone hold a lead at half-time with Adam Larkin rescuing a point from the penalty spot with 10 minutes remaining.
On 15th January the top two went head to head in an epic encounter at Whyteleafe that saw 11 goals from a first half that produced eight of them! Tonbridge raced into a 3-0 and 4-2 lead before the half-time whistle saw the game at 5-3 to the Angels. The second half was a bit tighter but Sutton Common pulled the game back to 5-5 before our U18s found the winner. Our goals came from Callum Fincham (2), Robert Penman (2), Tolu Fabimafobee (2). If the season is kept alive until the final games, the encounter back at Whyteleafe on 19th March could be monumental!
Monday evening’s game was an entertaining encounter, as is always the case with fixtures against Welling, with Dom Welsh having to shuffle his squad with 15 year-old goalkeeper Jacob Hunt making his debut.
Tonbridge opened the game brightly but fell behind against the run of play on nine minutes when Alfie Cragg took advantage of a defensive mix-up to pass the ball into an unguarded goal.
The Angels responded well to the set back with the goalkeeper turning over a good effort from Larkin but on 16 minutes, following good work from Noah Millis, Larkin cracked home a good finish to level the score.
The game became very end-to-end with chances falling the way of Fabimafobee and Penman whilst at the other end, Hunt made three good saves.
Only two second half minutes had elapsed when the Angels took the lead when River Ballach’s cross was fired into the bottom corner from Fabimafobee.
Tonbridge took control of the game with Fabimafobee causing the Welling backline all sorts of problems with his direct runs on goal, culminating just past the hour, when a run from deep saw him dribble the ball through the defence before finishing well.
Two goals in two minutes appeared to have put the game well beyond the visitors with Fabimafobee completing his hat-trick as he benefited from a rebound after the goalkeeper had saved a Penman shot and when, on 71 minutes, substitute Ishe Hunidzarira curled a 20 yard free kick into the top corner, the game looked safe.
But within three minutes, one goal had been pulled back when Cragg beat the advancing Hunt to stroke the ball into the empty net and when Cragg scrambled the ball home for his hat-trick on 77 minutes, nerves jangled.
The game was managed to the final whistle for three important points that was hailed by Dom Welsh: “An outstanding performance, with four key players missing through injury and to be 5-1 up against a strong side is a credit to the boys. A few individual errors made the game tighter than it need.”
Picture: Emma Louise Wheeler
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